In the richer countries, people live largely protected from the seasons. Food supplies don’t fail in winter, central heating is pretty reliable and when a village is cut off by snow for a few days it’s big news. We (I mean the majority, not people who are poor) can get summer any time we like at the end of a flight. Spring means longer daylight and maybe some green shoots in the garden. Autumn means leaves on the pavements. August means school summer holidays and the start of the football season.

All this of course is from a temperate zone, northern hemisphere perspective, but the same sort of thing can be said anywhere. A rainy season means less if the road surfaces are good and you’ve got a car.

Yet the succession of the seasons is dug deep into the language and consciousness of most peoples.

Here’s a poem I posted a long while ago.

AUTUMN

At the completeness of the year
Yellow, scarlet, claret, orange flare
One dissolves in the other, unique colour,
Beech, dogwood, spindle, aspen, elm
Blazing dead fronds of bracken. Robins still sing.
Last swallow lingers.
Soft damp, a hint of fertile rotting
Cold, sharp, a sense of winter’s hardening
Tumult of migrants misted in the air.

Past the long changing wood
The road runs fast, cars jockey,
Schedules are met, business done
And the computers speak
Of golden beaches in the sun.

Like other seasons, autumn looks back and forwards.

I was thinking about the seasons recently because suddenly, in late July, a whole lot of birds suddenly stopped singing. They were singing and a few days later they were all silent, yet I knew even the summer visitors wouldn’t have left yet. They were there, but silent, and therefore largely invisible. At about the same time the common small butterfly the Gatekeeper went from none to dozens round most bramble bushes.

And for once I was more interested in the cricket than the opening football matches (I prefer cricket, but the start of a new season is always fascinating). To save Australian blushes I won’t mention what was holding my attention at Trent Bridge…

Next time, a new poem. Promise.